Space Shot of the Day: The Horsehead Nebula

The Horsehead Nebula, located approximately 1,300 to 1,500 lightyears from Earth in the constellation of Orion, is making buzz in the space news circuit after researchers at the Institute for Millimetric Radio Astronomy detected an unusually dense presence of hydrocarbon molecule C3H+—one of the smallest molecules that compose petroleum and natural gas—estimated to be 200 times more than the total amount of water on Earth.